We're celebrating the first day of Spring 2026 here at THOIA, as well as over at AEET, complete with some do (though focusing on don't) tips about how to really bring your plants and garden back to life! Well, maybe not exactly THIS much "back to life", but you all know what I'm talkin' 'bout, right? And when was the last time we saw anything by Reed Crandall around these parts? It's seriously been a long cold, errr, half decade+, for sure! And okay, don't get your hopes too high, cuz this ain't even by him anyway, even though it's credited to him! It's actually, of course, terrifyin' Tom Sutton layin' down his usual brilliant, and ominously organic artwork! Also, that stunning London After Midnight cover painting is by the great Basil Gogos, and not Charles Schulz, or Barry Gibb, --via the awesome April 1969 issue of Creepy #26.
What, a Warren mag being a little slapdash and giving the wrong credits? Impossible!
ReplyDeleteWarren had it's problems but their run of last 60s / 70s B&W mags were the ones to beat. Full of great artists, both old and new, faithful originally to the EC twist ending and growing gradually into all sorts of other stories, I treasure my Warren collection -- all in hardcover (thank you, dark horse!) I sent my old magazine collection to Karswell :)
This one is a lot of fun, and I want to point out it predates swamp/man thing by a couple years (but not the heap, or all the other human -> plant monster stories.) So it has an interesting place in history.
Lots to love in the art; the giant late story splash, how slimy and shapeless Sutton makes the monster, how he draws the hateful town folk as angry, bent people (with a guest appearance from Uncle Creepy!)
Sutton also does a great job with the machines, the swamp, it's just an all around treat. And they go well overboard with the sound fx, and it all works.
I wouldn't have guessed it was Sutton if you had not told me. Sutton's work could be sometimes cartoony sometimes serious illustration, here it was mostly serious then cartoony concerning the plant man hybrid.
ReplyDeleteThe plant monster reminded me of the comic story "Check the J C Demon Cataloge under Death" by Alex Niño from House of Mystery #245 (July 1976). It also featured a plant human hybrid seeking revenge.
Alex Niño's work can be really bizarre at times. I wonder, with his unique style, how he would have handled Lovecraftian beasties.